Easy Redmine 2019 release notes

Redmine 4 and Rails 5

ER 2019 runs on Redmine 4.0.3, which runs on Rails 5.x

The Rails upgrade is a significant change. Upgrade procedure of Easy Redmine is the same as normally, but you may encounter specific issues in your server environment that can’t be foreseen or documented prior. Please be prepared for possible Rails 4 to 5 upgrade issues.

Ruby

Ruby 2.3 support has been officially ended by the author. While ER 2019 will work on 2.3 series, we strongly recommend to upgrade to 2.5 or higher.

Internet Explorer deprecation

IE is no longer supported in Easy Redmine 2019 due to inability to handle latest technologies that are required by Easy Redmine.
More info here.

Switch to new design

By upgrading to Easy Redmine 2019, your application design will be automatically switched to the new (ER 18 theme). The old design will still be available for a temporary transitional period, but is no longer supported and will be removed in a near release.

Mention users in comment (@user)

It is now possible to mention a user in a task comment and he will receive an email notification. Autocomplete is available for the user selection.

How it works?

• The mention must be in form @username (=login)
  
• If username contains "@" symbol, mention doesn't work
• Email about mention is sent ALWAYS
  > Even if the user has all notifications disabled
  > Even if user doesn't have access to the task
  > Even if you tick the option Don't send notifications when saving the comment
• It is a new type of notification with subject You were mentioned: [Task name]
• It is completely independent from regular task notifications => if you are assignee of the task and someone mentions you in the comment, you will receive two notifications - one from the task as assignee, another one for being mentioned

 

Resource management – change in how tasks are shown

Previously

Resource management shows only tasks that have start and due date in the selected period. As a result, some tasks that are allocated in the selected period were hidden from view.

Now

Resource management shows all tasks that have some hours allocated in the selected period.

What may be the consequence?

If a task starts and ends in the selected period, but doesn’t have any allocated hours, you will not see its box in the resource management. You would see this task in the previous version.

But this change of behavior is not a bug, because resource management is designed to work with tasks with estimated time.

Another situation is that a task does have estimated time and allocations, but they are beyond the selected time period. The box of this task will also not be visible, because is bears no relevance to the selected time period.

 

Resource management – reservations in %

Added possibility to create reservations in percentage of capacity within the selected period.

 

Resource management - Multiday meetings

When you are attending a multiple day meeting (via meeting calendar), in Resource management it will act as a full day meeting for all concerned days

For example, Meeting starts May 6th at 09:30, ends on May 9th at 13:00, resource management will show full workload for all four days. It will still be possible to allocate hours to these days, but the meeting will be shown. This is the only viable way to show multiple days in RM.

Calendar view

Resource management

 

 

Custom theme – logo background

In custom uploaded main logo (top left corner), via our custom design service, the logo will be transparent – background color is taken from the main menu. If you have some logo colors identical or similar to the color of main menu, it will be become invisible.

In such case, contact support, and we will make the necessary changes in your custom design. When using original Easy Redmine logo, background is white.

 

Exports – Gantt export with date selection

Project and global Gantt can now be exported only in selected time period.

If no dates are chosen, whole Gantt is exported.

 

Exports – Restricted export use

Unless you have permission View export templates, you will not see the export Print button on any list or task detail.

Permission

View without permission

View with permission

 

Exports – generate docx with dynamic tokens from application

1) Create a custom .docx file containing dynamic tokens used in export templates

 

2) Upload the file into an export template

 

3) From task list of a single project, choose Print in the exporting options

 

4) Select your export template and click Generate docx

 

Exports - CSV export changes

Due to complications in further file processing, SUM value was removed from CSV exports.

To export SUM value, you can use XLSX export.

 

Charts - cummulative charts

New option to show cumulative values. Works on line and bar charts.

Setting

 

Result

 

Result in classic (periodical) view

 

Charts - Change in settings (group by vs. X axis)

Setting of list grouping and chart X axis has become independent. You will not be able to set different grouping of list output and chart.

This was previously not possible as X axis was used the group by option. In some types of page modules, this caused confusion.

Setting

 

Result

 

Agile Board - disabled swim lane for projects

If you are viewing tasks in Scrum or Kanban and you are in a context of a project, you will not be able to choose swim lane – Project.

This kind of option caused confusing behavior and was practically useless.

To be more precise, this option was removed from

• Kanban output
• Scrum or Kanban page modules on project overview page

This option still remains in global task list, output Kanban. And on tab Scrum and Kanban on project with subprojects.

 

Languages - overall revision of DE and FR

All existing DE and FR localization have been revised and corrected. Further corrections will be distributed in weekly bug fixing releases.

 

Languages - English mutations removed

Only one English is left now. Mutations EN-GB, EN-US, EN-AU have been removed. Users and applications that had this setting will be automatically switched.

There are no functional changes. One noticeable change is for the name of VAT (value added tax) in Budgets and Invoicing, which had local naming in US and AU mutations.

Also, these mutations contained some original Redmine wordings, e.g. issue instead of task, so you may notice some other changes as well.

Unification of English is necessary due to long term maintenance of the texting.

 

Languages - multilingual noticeboard

New page module - Multilingual noticeboard. It works as a regular notice board, but you are able to add localizations in different language.

How it works?

• If user’s language (or global language forced to all users) is the same as in the noticeboard, you will see that localization
• If your language doesn’t have a localization in the noticeboard, you will see the English version
• If English version is missing, users with language that doesn’t have a localization will see a blank noticeboard

Regular noticeboard remains untouched - no existing data is affected.

 

Languages - Language mutations of names of fields

In translatable names (e.g. statuses, priorities, user types) there is a change in name editing. Name can be changed in a pop-up window, where you can see all localizations.

This will prevent the situation when you would rename, for example, a task status, but the change was only applied in your current language. The other translations would remain inconsistent.

 

Budgets - Portfolio overview of budget on tasks

Same as portfolio overview on projects, but for tasks’ budgets.

Accessible via More menu >> Budgets statement >> Budgets on tasks

 

Budgets – expanded creation of budget entries

When creating a budget entry, you can select which entity it should be linked to. Very useful if you have budgets allowed on tasks or milestones.

LDAP(S) change

You may come across issues logging in when using LDAPS without a valid certificate. In Redmine 4, LDAPS cerfiticate is always validated. With an invalid certificate, users will not be able to log in. The correct long term solution is to use a valid certificate. But until you achieve this, the temporary solution is to go to Adminsitration >> LDAP authentication >> Edit respective auth mode.

Change setting to LDAPS (without certificate check).

With Easy Redmine Server solution you can change it in bulk from rails console
rails r "AuthSource.update_all(verify_peer: false)" -e production

or via SQL
UPDATE auth_sources set verify_peer = 0;

 

Author: Robert Kováčik, Lukáš Beňa